You will probably be happy to know that while I’ve been loosely aware of Wheel of Time for years, your mentions of it here are what convinced me to finally buy the books. I’m about 1/4th of the way through the fourth book, and quite happy with the series so far.

It would be vaguely amusing to see a version of it go the other way. Imagine “yes, I’m committed to LGBT representation… you meant playing up the Red Ajah as radfem political lesbians, right?”

More seriously, the worst thing about the casting is that they can’t even use the excuse of “it’s not important! It never affects things! Don’t let it bother you!” As early as book one, the fact that places have consistent phenotypes is made clear, and many of even the minor interactions the Emond’s Fielders have with the wider world are explicitly influenced by the fact that people recognize them as being simple peasant fol. To say nothing of how critically important it is that Rand alone defies those phenotypes in the way he does. You simply can’t have Rand, Perrin, Mat, Nynaeve, and Egwene all look like they’re from different ethnicities.

You will probably be happy to know that while I’ve been loosely aware of Wheel of Time for years, your mentions of it here are what convinced me to finally buy the books. I’m about 1/4th of the way through the fourth book, and quite happy with the series so far.

It would be vaguely amusing to see a version of it go the other way. Imagine “yes, I’m committed to LGBT representation… you meant playing up the Red Ajah as radfem political lesbians, right?”

More seriously, the worst thing about the casting is that they can’t even use the excuse of “it’s not important! It never affects things! Don’t let it bother you!” as early as book one, the fact that places have consistent phenotypes is made clear, and many of even the minor interactions the Emond’s Fielders have with the wider world are explicitly influenced by the fact that people recognize them as being simple peasant fol. To say nothing of how critically important it is that Rand alone defies those phenotypes in the way he does. You simply can’t have Rand, Perrin, Mat, Nynaeve, and Egwene all look like they’re from different ethnicities.